Ashurbanipal 059

1ŠÀ “inside”: Exs. 3, 5–8, 15, and 19–20 instead have qé-reb.

2According to Ashurbanipal’s annalistic texts, Tammarītu killed Ummanigaš (Ḫumban-nikaš II) and his family (presumably also his younger brother Tammarītu). The composer(s) of the Nabû Inscription and Mullissu Inscription (text no. 60), however, imply that Ummanigaš was alive and that this deposed Elamite ruler was living out his days in Nineveh, serving the Assyrian king, including pulling his chariot during akītu-festivals; for example, see Frame, CUSAS 17 pp. 144–145. W.F.M. Henkelman (BiOr 60 [2003] p. 262) proposes that the Ummanigaš mentioned in these two texts might be Ummanigaš, son of Ademirra. Even if this proves correct, and it seems highly unlikely since only deposed rulers are known to have been humiliated by being harnessed to Ashurbanipal’s processional carriage during religious ceremonies, the composers of the Nabû Inscription and Mullissu Inscription clearly believed that the Ummanigaš they were referring to was none other the former Elamite king who had lived in the court at Nineveh between 664 and 653, even though he is reported to have been killed many years earlier. This is suggested by the fact that the order of Elamite rulers is roughly chronological, from earliest to latest: Ummanigaš (Ḫumban-nikaš II), Tammarītu, Paʾê, and Ummanaldašu (Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III). The name of Ummanigaš must have been intentionally substituted for that of Uaiteʾ in these two texts; this is perhaps to keep with the theme of Ashurbanipal’s victories over Elam.

3ḫa-diš “with pleasure”: Ex. 20 omits this word.

4ke-e-ni “reliable”: The copy of ex. 20 has GIN after SANTAK₄-ki-ka of line 15, then begins line 16 with ke-e-nu. Apparently, the scribe(s) of this exemplar wrote the word out logographically at the end of line 15, but then wrote it out again phonetically — as it appears in the majority of the exemplars — in the following line.